Canon City News

Survey: City's appearance needs improvement

Citizen survey meeting set for 6 p.m. Nov. 10 at City Hall.

By Carie Canterbury

The Daily Record

Posted:
10/29/2016 08:46:21 AM MDT

More than three fourths of citizens feel Cañon City's natural environment overall is positive, however, less than half have a positive impression of the city's built environment, which includes infrastructure, signage, buildings and overall physical look. A photo of U.S. 50 taken earlier this year. (Carie Canterbury / Daily Record)

Special Topics

— Nearly 70 percent of citizens feel positive about the overall quality of life in Cañon City and the city as a place to live. Nearly 80 percent of respondents reported they plan to remain in Cañon City while 76 percent said this is a good place to retire.

— About half of respondents support cultivation of marijuana, but not for sale, in industrial zones. About 4 in 10 support cultivation in commercial zones. Online support for industrial zone cultivation was 60 percent, and 52 percent for commercial zones cultivation.

— Nearly 4 in 10 respondents indicated a positive overall image and reputation of Cañon City, with 18-44 year olds rating it positive at only 24 percent, compared to a 52 percent positive rating among 55 and older respondents.

— The overall image rating of 39 percent is lower than comparison benchmark communities (284 out of 319).

— Information provided by City Administrator Tony O'Rourke

Community Quality

(excellent/good rating) Scientific survey / online survey

Overall quality of life: 66% / 59%

Cañon City as a place to live: 71% / 67%

Place to visit: 69% / 77%

Place to retire: 76% / 70%

Overall natural environment: 77% / 77%

Overall built environment: 46% / 40%

Overall city image/reputation: 39% / 27%

Overall appearance: 53% / 44%

Cleanliness of Cañon City: 61% / 55%

Advertisement

Overall quality of new development: 23% / 17%

— Citizen survey results provided by the City of Cañon City

Editor's note: This is the third in a series of weekly articles breaking down the recently released results from the 2016 Citizen Survey administered by the National Research Center for the City of Cañon City.

More than three fourths of citizens responding to a recent community survey feel Cañon City's natural environment overall is positive, however, less than half have a positive impression of the city's built environment, which includes infrastructure, signage, buildings and overall physical look.

The survey will serve as Cañon City Council's roadmap in planning the next few years of the city's future. Residents are invited to share their thoughts more in depth during a citizen survey meeting at 6 p.m. Nov. 10 in the lower level of City Hall at 128 Main St.

The council will take those responses, as well as the survey results, to their Nov. 15 retreat, where they will work to create a strategic plan laying out priorities and key intended outcomes they hope to achieve.

City Administrator Tony O'Rourke said Cañon City's built environment needs to be elevated to that of the natural environment, which already is there, including making changes to aesthetics, signage, building quality and code enforcement.

"Appearance is lacking," he said. "First impressions are very, very important and powerful. The first impression of Cañon City is not nearly as good as it should be, especially given its location, natural surrounding and weather — you don't get a 'wow factor,' you get a feel like you're coming into the 60s and 70s."

Only 39 percent of respondents said Cañon City has a positive overall self image, while 74 percent said they have seen code violations around town. Respondents rated the city's code enforcement operation at 17 percent positive.

O'Rourke said residents are seeing a lot of code violations, but there currently is only one code enforcement officer who can't cover the entire city by himself.

"We need to educate and empower the community to do a better job themselves in taking care of their property, showing some pride — that's mowing your lawn, eliminating weeds, painting your house or business, just trying to look your best — that will make a material difference," he said. "We can not enforce our way into better looking communities."

However, the city will hire another code enforcement officer next year to help with the workload, but O'Rourke said the community still needs to be educated on "good, common aesthetic standards."

"If everyone just took care of their own property, we'd be a lot more attractive," he said.

The overall quality of life in Cañon City was 66 percent positive, rating it good or excellent; 71 percent said this is a positive place to live; and 76 percent said this is a good place to retire.

"We do lend ourselves being a very attractive location," O'Rourke said.

AARP Magazine ( http://read.bi/2eQ1L2t) recently rated Cañon City as one of the top 10 best American cities to live comfortably on $40,000 a year.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.